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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234403">What's Inside</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fieryphrazes/pseuds/fieryphrazes'>fieryphrazes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BJ's Trapper Complex, BJ-centric, Canon Era, Character Study, Coming Out, Divorce, Emotionally Repressed, Episode: s05e13 Hawk's Nightmare, M/M, Post-Canon, Repression, Self-Discovery, the author can write a little bit of bedsharing... as a treat, what can i say i'm a beejgirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:07:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,929</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234403</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fieryphrazes/pseuds/fieryphrazes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>BJ has always tried to keep difficult, painful things from affecting him. The war makes that harder. </p><p>Coming home makes it impossible.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic is complete! I will be updating as the chapters go through final edits. </p><p>The working title of my doc was "BJ repression hours!!!" ... so that should give you an idea of what to expect!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was hard to watch. Hawkeye had been unraveling a little bit, day by day. BJ hadn’t noticed at first, but the frayed edges were starting to show – when he would laugh a little bit too loudly, or joke a little too often. They all had coping mechanisms, BJ knew that – he had his own, after all; he was always carefully tamping down the constant flow of patients and blood with thoughts of Erin, or Peg, or – nothing. Emptiness. But with Hawkeye, it was different. He let it flow through him, BJ thought; he absorbed too much of it. Not for the first time, BJ thanked whatever it was that made him a little bit harder. Maybe it had always been there, underneath a veneer of smiles and practical jokes. Maybe he’d always had a shell to hide in. He was luckier than Hawkeye that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’d been sleeping side by side for over a year when the nightmares started. That first night, BJ heard the scream and thought – this is it, it’s all over. A wave of panic, then nothing – just numbness as his brain came back online. Once he’d woken up a little more, he realized it was Hawkeye screaming, and not in pain – in fear. He ran over to the cot, grasping Hawkeye by the shoulders, trying to wake him as gently as he could – which was not very gently at all. Hawkeye’s eyes were so wide, so scared – like a little kid. Like Erin might look after a nightmare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay, Hawk?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was horrible –” Hawkeye gasped, clutching at BJ’s shoulders, grounding himself to reality. BJ reached up and took Hawkeye’s hands, holding them between his own. Hawkeye didn’t let go – he just held on tightly and told BJ about it. About sledding on Hermitage Hill with Toby and Dickie, and all the close calls they had with that old oak tree – and how tonight, it wasn’t a close call. Tonight it was the real thing, and Toby was bleeding bright red all over the white snow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ listened, watching Hawkeye carefully, and held his hands until they stopped shaking. It took about an hour before he fell back into a fitful sleep. BJ didn’t want to leave him, but he tamped that desire down too, right next to the death and the bad food and the sound of shells whistling overhead. When Hawkeye’s limbs went lax, BJ reluctantly stood up and went over to his own cot, looking back at Hawkeye thoughtfully. He just felt it all too much, BJ thought. He wished he could teach him how to hold it at arm’s length. The one useful thing he knew, other than stitching kids back up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He heard Hawkeye yelling in the office, and walked in just in time to see him slam the phone down in a huff. Radar was looking at Hawkeye with deep concern; Hawkeye was so worked up he didn’t seem to notice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“37 lousy dollars! The three musketeers go their separate ways over 37 lousy dollars!” He paced around the office, running an agitated hand through his hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hawk?” BJ asked uncertainly, looking between Hawkeye and Radar. Radar looked down at his clipboard, nervously avoiding eye contact with either of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My best friend since first grade, the fink,” Hawkeye said in disgust.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A couple days later, it was another friend, another phone call. Hawkeye left that one ranting, too. BJ thought about his own friends growing up; their faces were blurs at this point. He remembered their names, and the games they’d played together, but somehow – they just didn’t matter much. Not enough to show up in his dreams, or make him mad over the phone. Part of him thought that Hawkeye should just let go. Another part of him – a bigger part – marveled at him, being able to hold so many people in his heart at the same time. Being able to care, even when he didn’t get anything back.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sleepwalking was a problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could really hurt yourself,” BJ said. His tone was casual, but there was real concern just below the surface. Maybe Hawkeye heard that, he thought. Maybe he saw through it all, to the trembling underneath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, what can we do about it?” Hawkeye asked, looking around the tent as if an answer would manifest in the air. BJ bit his lip, thinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I might have an idea,” he said with a mischievous smile. Hawkeye looked at him with guarded interest; he’d learned to be wary of that expression.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure this will work,” Hawkeye said as they pushed their cots together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s worth a try,” BJ replied, sitting on his cot and pulling Hawkeye down onto the other half of their makeshift double bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beej, if you wanted to get me into bed, all you had to do was ask,” Hawkeye said, batting his eyelashes. BJ rolled his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, get in here,” he said, gesturing towards his open arms. Hawkeye shuffled toward him, surprisingly tense as BJ wrapped his arms around Hawkeye’s middle, holding him securely in place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll wake up if you try to get up,” he said. “I promise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye hesitated, then nodded, finally relaxing into the pillow. BJ could feel Hawkeye’s pulse thrumming; it took a long time for his breathing to slow down. Eventually, he fell asleep – really asleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>BJ was vaguely aware of movement. He drowsily tightened his grip around the person in his grasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Too early,” he murmured, absent-mindedly pressing his lips to the neck in front of him. “Go back to sleep, Peg.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The body in front of him resisted, pushing forward. BJ really woke up, then, and realized what was happening; Hawkeye was breaking away from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hawk, Hawk, it’s okay,” BJ chanted, hoping the reassuring tone would cut through Hawkeye’s sleeping mind and settle somewhere deep in his brain. It didn’t work, at least not right away; Hawkeye kept struggling. BJ had him in a loose but strong grip; he wasn’t giving in. Hawkeye said some garbled words, something about playing jacks – but BJ held on. That was the whole point – protecting Hawkeye from himself. Eventually he settled back down, and BJ let his arms relax around Hawkeye, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They slept like that for a few days, Hawkeye always avoiding eye contact in the morning. BJ didn’t understand what he had to be embarrassed about – he’d do more, if Hawkeye needed it. But he gave Hawkeye some space during the day, maybe trying to make up for how close they were at night. Eventually Hawkeye’s mind cooled down, and he started staying put all night. BJ cleared him to sleep on his own again – Hawkeye seemed relieved. BJ tried not to be offended.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>They sat in the mess tent after a 9-hour stint in the OR, huddled over some horrible coffee. BJ let his head loll onto Hawkeye’s shoulder, eyes almost slipping closed despite the army-issue caffeine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you remember – back when Carlye was around,” Hawkeye paused, searching for the words. “There was something you said, about being faithful to yourself.” He looked down at BJ expectantly; BJ straightened up and nodded. He remembered saying it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you think you should maybe – try that?” Hawkeye said, almost apologetically.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Try?” BJ asked, confused. Hawkeye kept that expectant look on his face, peering at him full of some kind of intent that BJ didn’t understand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hawk, this is just – me. How can I be more true to myself than I am right now?” BJ asked, laughing the idea off uncomfortably.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye’s face fell, and he muttered something under his breath, BJ couldn’t tell what.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Hawk, what are you talking about? I don’t get it,” BJ complained. “You’re acting like I’m, I don’t know, hiding something from you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are,” Hawkeye said plainly. “You’re hiding something from me, and – and from yourself. Can’t you just wake up already?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, I don’t know what’s gotten into you – and I don’t know what you’re talking about – but I think I know myself pretty well. I’ve been stuck with me for about three decades now.” BJ was getting agitated. “What makes you think I’m hiding anything, anyway?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye didn’t respond right away; he looked down at his hands, twisting around his coffee cup, and his shoulders seemed to slump a little bit. Defeated, BJ thought. He looked defeated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re right, Beej. I don’t know what’s gotten into me either. Just – forget it,” Hawkeye said, standing up and leaving the mess tent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ tried to put it out of his mind, but he thought about it late that night as he lay in his cot, just a few feet away from Hawkeye. He wondered what Hawkeye thought he saw somewhere inside of BJ, that made him think there was – something else. As BJ fell asleep, he ignored a small tug in his chest that led somewhere he didn’t understand. Somewhere deep, somewhere he’d never been before.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t see how you can be friends with a jerk like that,” Hawkeye said from the dentist chair, gesturing dismissively after Leo. “I mean, he’s just – those pranks – they’re mean!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ cocked his head and looked at Hawkeye, confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve pulled meaner pranks than that, Hawk,” he said. Hawkeye shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve never cost someone 500 dollars, or gotten them arrested,” Hawkeye said, a trace of disgust in his voice. BJ felt something flare up inside – a sudden need to defend Leo, and himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, I’m sorry our games don’t live up to whatever invisible moral code you’ve invented for yourself,” he said, getting heated. “But Leo and I used to have a pretty good time, and the guys at school didn’t seem to mind much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye rolled his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure the meatheads in that fraternity of yours didn’t mind anything, so long as it could be chalked up to some kind of pissing contest,” Hawkeye said derisively. “But me and Trapper –“ BJ stood up suddenly, hands on his hips; Hawkeye paused at the movement. BJ opened his mouth to contradict Hawkeye, to say something that would prove him hopelessly wrong, but instead he just threw up his hands, slamming the door of the tent as he stomped out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He circled the camp slowly, kicking at whatever debris wound up in his path, hands jammed into his pockets. He didn’t understand why he was so mad, because – because part of him knew that he agreed with Hawkeye. Leo was mean, he did go too far. And BJ didn’t like himself with Leo, the way they escalated and egged each other on, until one of them went too far and someone got arrested, or – or couldn’t go home. It shocked BJ to realize that he’d really swiped Leo’s orders, that he could have kept him from going home. It almost knocked the wind out of him, recognizing how casually he’d taken that away from Leo – and how much he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to take it, to have it for himself. How even now, he was mad at Leo for getting to go home while he was – here. Stuck. Trapped. Trapped with the memory of Trapper, somehow lingering over the Swamp. He could feel it, this guy he’d never even met, living on in Hawkeye’s memories, a ghost sleeping in BJ’s bed, smothering him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He wishes you were Trapper</span>
  </em>
  <span>, a voice deep inside BJ said. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re just filling the hole he left behind</span>
  </em>
  <span>. BJ shook his head, angry at himself now, instead of Hawkeye. He circled the camp once more, then reluctantly returned to the Swamp, where Hawkeye was already in bed, pretending to be asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once BJ had slipped into bed, Hawkeye stirred, giving up on the charade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beej, I’m sorry,” Hawkeye said. BJ didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t an apology. He sighed heavily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” he replied quietly. “You’re right. We get mean when we’re together, it’s just – usually no one says anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye didn’t respond, but the silence felt loaded to BJ. He needed to fill it up, say something, distract from whatever was thickening the air, making him want to – to reveal himself. To say something real to Hawkeye. He struggled with himself, trying to think of something blasé. As the silence dragged on, he decided to give honesty a shot. For once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think I knew how empty it was,” BJ began, staring at the canvas ceiling and gathering his thoughts. “That friendship with Leo. It was fun, you know? It didn’t need to be anything other than fun. With all the guys at school it was like that – joking around, getting away with something. We never – never said anything to each other, not really. Never connected, or – god, Hawk, I don’t even know what I’m trying to say,” BJ finished apologetically. He looked over at Hawkeye, who had a wistful look on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know what you mean,” Hawkeye finally said. “That’s how – that’s how Trapper wanted it to be. He tried to keep me at arm’s length. The way you do, sometimes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It pained BJ, to know that Hawkeye saw it that way – that he didn’t know he’d gotten closer than anyone else ever had – that he just focused on the distance, without any kind of context.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” BJ said softly. “I don’t mean to. I don’t want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay, that’s how – that’s how it should be,” Hawkeye said, his voice rough in a way that gave BJ pause. “You’ve got a family – I know that. They’re what you hold on to, you don’t really need me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ closed his eyes, feeling a painful kind of heat building up inside him, something desperate that he didn’t recognize – until he was crying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do need you, Hawk,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice even. “I really do.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>BJ stalked into the swamp, balling up his jacket and throwing it forcefully at the cot. Hawkeye followed right behind, still needling him over some stupid comment BJ had made in the OR. BJ couldn’t even remember what he’d said -- just some joke that fell flat; now Hawkeye was turning it into the foundation for some kind of conspiracy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, you’re so good at being whoever people want you to be, I wonder –” Hawkeye threw his hands up in the air. “I wonder if you even know who you are, under all that.” BJ balked at that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hawk, what – what are you talking about? I’m just me!” he said. That hurt coming from Hawkeye – who knew him better than anyone else ever had – and it shocked BJ to hear it. No one had ever talked to him like that, before Hawkeye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, sure, you’re you with me. But what about with Aggie? With Carrie? You’re a different person every time, Beej, and it – it drives me crazy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hawk, what are you -- what are you doing? You come at me with some bullshit about who I really am, and now you’re, what, bringing up every person that’s actually meant something to me here? Like I should be ashamed of, what -- feeling something??” BJ asked incredulously.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, aren’t you ashamed of it?” Hawkeye asked probingly. BJ sighed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I am. But you knew that, didn’t you?” he said, not really asking. Not understanding why Hawkeye was doing this, picking at him when he was already barely hanging on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beej, it doesn’t have to be like this,” Hawkeye said, his tone surprisingly gentle. “You don’t have to hide parts of yourself away, you could just – let them show.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>BJ shook his head violently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t,” he whispered, not understanding how Hawkeye knew, when he didn’t even know himself. “I can’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye didn’t look surprised, just tired. Maybe that’s what hurt the most, BJ thought. That he had said it at all, knowing BJ wouldn’t understand.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Oh, listen to this, Hawk – there was a rainstorm last week, and Peg took Erin out to play in the puddles after. Peg says ‘she got all muddy, but it was the happiest I’ve ever seen her. When I gave her a bath, she got muddy handprints all over the nice towels.’” BJ laughed, mostly to himself. He didn’t really expect Hawkeye to listen when he read his letters out loud, but he needed to say the words, needed to put them into the world as sounds, not just shapes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, Peg,” BJ said softly, leaning back and letting the letter drop onto his chest. “God, I miss them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You found a good one, Beej,” Hawkeye said absentmindedly, not looking up from – whatever he was reading. BJ didn’t want to think too hard about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you think you’ll ever find a good one?” he asked facetiously, not really expecting Hawkeye to reply, but Hawkeye pulled a face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you know how many marriages end in death, Beej? And those are the good ones!” he said in a disgusted tone. Part of BJ knew it was just Hawkeye’s over-the-top bachelor performance, but still, he felt a pang in his side at the idea of Hawkeye really thinking that, never settling down, never – never loving someone back. It hurt him, somehow. BJ didn’t understand his reaction – Hawkeye loved the whole world, he had no shortage of that pouring out of him, so why was BJ so worried about him loving someone back? He shook it off, put the thought away. It nestled in against the other things he didn’t think about – the war and the blood and the distance and all the other times he’d felt – this. Whatever it was. Sometimes it felt like his chest was getting crowded, with so many things locked up tight inside it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It had been so easy to fall in love with Peg. She was the only woman he’d ever wanted, really – he saw her across campus, making a scrunched-up unhappy kind of face, and he thought – here’s someone who doesn’t care who’s looking at her. Here’s someone who does what she wants. He asked around, but no one seemed to know her. Eventually he saw her in the cafeteria and threw caution to the wind – he talked to her, asked her to the movies. She said no, but that they could be friends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why would you want to go out with someone like me, anyway?” she asked him, half-joking. “I say whatever I’m thinking, and I’d rather read than go to a party, and I can’t even scramble an egg.” Hearing her say that, playfully outline what she thought were her faults – it just made BJ like her more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So they were friends. He was almost torn up inside about it, but being friends with Peg was worth it. She was so funny, and so honest, and she made him feel more than he’d ever felt before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, why didn’t you get a real date for this thing?” she asked him as they walked to the fraternity winter formal. BJ shrugged and smiled at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t want a real date,” he explained. “I wanted to go with you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She gave him an exasperated look and adjusted her coat, pulling it down to cover more of her knees.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s freezing out here!” she said, warm breath rising in the cool air. BJ watched it, transfixed. Everything about Peg fascinated him – the words she said and the way her shoulders shifted when she walked and the sound of her voice. He could spend forever soaking her in, he thought.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Here, take mine,” BJ said, shrugging out of his own jacket and piling it on top of Peg’s coat. She protested as she wrapped herself up in it, giving him an appraising eye as he shivered just a little bit. It wasn’t really all that cold, he told himself. When they got to the party, half the room turned to look at Peg as she shrugged the layers off. The boys, jealous of BJ, and the girls – well, BJ didn’t know what they were thinking. BJ wondered if Peg could feel it – the way people looked at her, half in love and half afraid of her. He looked at her that way, too. He wondered if she saw it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They met in the library every Monday, BJ with his chemistry textbook and Peg with her rotating cast of classic novels. BJ wasn’t sure why it worked, her reading the great authors and dissecting themes while he crammed formulas and molecules into his brain. But somehow it all came together. One Monday, she tossed </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Tenant of Wildfell Hall </span>
  </em>
  <span>onto the table between them and sighed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t think I want to get married,” she declared loudly, and someone nearby shushed her. Peg’s head whipped around to find the culprit, and she stuck out her tongue at them fiercely. BJ nearly doubled over, trying to keep his laughter quiet – it was the library, after all. When Peg had schooled her face and BJ had recovered from the joyous shock of it all, he asked her why.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well – think about what being a wife means,” she said. “It means you sit and wait for someone to come home. And sometimes you cook and clean.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ’s brow furrowed. He’d never thought about it like that – not really. His mom had seemed happy enough, he thought. It never occurred to him that it could be different.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What would you do instead?” he asked, strangely anxious to hear the answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I don’t know. Have you ever read Gertrude Stein? She moved to Paris and did – well, anything she wanted,” Peg said, leaning forward eagerly as she inhabited the fantasy. “Maybe I’d go to Europe, and write. Or maybe I’d move to New York, and work at a fashion magazine. Or maybe I’ll stay in San Francisco, and fall in love, and get married after all,” she trailed off, not really sounding upset about it. “I’ve already made it a long way from Oklahoma, you know. And -- I think I like the idea of a family. If I can do it my way.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thinking about Peg’s lives laid out in front of her, BJ ached – he wasn’t sure if he was jealous of her, for having all those dreams, or of those dreams, for having her.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Two years later, he asked Peg to marry him. He told her they could move to New York, or Los Angeles, or anywhere she wanted – she gave him the most surprising answer of all. She wanted to stay in the Bay Area. She wanted to start a family, with him – she wanted a home. He thought about what she’d said that day in the library, and he couldn’t understand it, her choosing the traditional path. He wondered how it felt to her -- if it was the compromise that it seemed to him. He didn’t know, but he would do whatever he could to make Peg happy. Of course he would.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>BJ woke up and looked over to his left – no one was there. Not Peg, not Hawkeye. He wasn’t in Korea – he was in Mill Valley, and Peg slept on his right side, anyway. He took a deep breath, trying to ground himself here, in this moment – not in some amorphous past that threatened to encroach on reality.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He forced himself to get out of bed – he could tell it was late; Erin was probably at nursery school already, and Peg must be getting ready for her appointments. BJ felt guilty for not working yet himself; Peg had been telling him it was okay, that he should take some time to readjust. He felt listless, so drained that he couldn’t bring himself to call around to hospitals to see who was hiring. He just stayed home, sleeping most of the day, staying awake most of the night. Laying next to Peg restlessly, as she slept calmly through the night. Part of him was almost mad at her for it, for being able to keep living so easily, when he – he just couldn’t. It wasn’t easy anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Down in the kitchen, BJ heard metallic noises, but couldn’t place them – until he saw Peg’s knees emerging from under the sink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Need a hand, honey?” he asked, eager to take over whatever task she was working on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, no, I’ve got it under control,” she said cheerily, her voice strangely hollow from bouncing around the empty cabinet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wish you’d let me take care of it,” BJ said stiffly. There was a ratcheting noise from Peg’s general direction, and then she scooted out from under the sink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, standing up and dusting off her slacks. “It’s just the disposal, it’s been on the fritz. Nothing I can’t handle.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I still wish you’d let me.” There was an unfamiliar edge in BJ’s voice, something he didn’t recognize in himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, I’m so glad you’re home – you know that – but I can manage on my own,” Peg said, kindly but with a steely undercurrent. BJ decided to let it go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you want me to drive you to work?” he asked, and Peg stared at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been driving myself around for 12 years, honey,” she said primly. “I think I can manage getting to the office.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peg, I know, I just – I want to, really. I want to do something,” BJ trailed off, not really knowing where the thought was going, or where it had come from. Peg loved to drive; he used to let her take the wheel. His friends had made fun of him for it, after they’d seen Peg driving them around campus in BJ’s car. But she liked to drive, and he liked to let her. Well, he used to. Now, something about the idea made him feel queasy. Just one more thing he didn’t understand.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Peg sat him down at the kitchen table, taking the place opposite him with a heavy sigh. She looked like she dreaded whatever was coming next. She nervously pulled off one clip-on earring and fidgeted with it, opening and closing the clasp, before she spoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, you need to give me some breathing room – for god’s sake, go on a walk or – even go to a bar, I don’t care. But you have to give me a minute to breathe,” Peg said, sounding flustered and frustrated. BJ couldn’t believe what he was hearing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peg, I just got back – and you want me to get lost?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve been back for months! And you’ve been under my feet the entire time – and BJ, I love you, you know I do – but I need a second to myself, just a couple times a day. Okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ sat in stony silence, arms crossed as he glared at Peg. He couldn’t believe she was betraying him like this – asking for the one thing he couldn’t bear to give her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peg took a deep breath, and BJ could tell she was trying not to lose her temper. Part of him thought it was too bad – she was magnificent when she lost it, really let go. But she was holding on, for him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ,” she started again, slowly and more evenly. “You have been clinging since you got back. And I understand – I missed you too, of course I did. But we both know I’m not really what you’re clinging on to. It’s the idea of it all, of how it was before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ shook his head, not wanting to admit she might be right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, please – just give me a chance here. I’m trying to help,” she pleaded. “We were never like this, not really. You never minded when I did things on my own, never tried to keep me penned in. And that’s what I love about you – you let me be myself. That’s why I wanted to be with you, have a family with you. BJ, you’re the only man I’ve ever known who understood me, let me be my own kind of person. And it hurts me to say this, but not as much as it would hurt to keep letting it happen. You’re changing. You’re not letting me live my own way anymore, you’re – you’re trying to stop it.” Something desperate was creeping into Peg’s voice. “BJ, I love you so much, but you’re suffocating me, under the weight of this idea of who I used to be. And she’s not even real! That was never me, that was never us. You have to loosen up, or there won’t – there won’t be anything left of us.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ didn’t say anything. He felt numb – like Peg had shot him full of anesthesia and was going to work cutting out his heart. He was distantly aware of Peg standing up and coming around the table to kneel next to him, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a handkerchief, wiping tears away from his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ,” she whispered, one hand on his cheek and the other finding his own hands, balled up in his lap. “I want you to come back to me. But the real you, not this – this possessive version of you. I know it’s hard, I know you had to get through it. But you did! You made it out! Now, can you leave it behind? Can you come out of that shell?” She was crying too, now, kneeling on the floor in her slacks, offering him the hanky. The pain burst back in full force – the impact hitting him suddenly: what he had been doing to Peg, without even knowing it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Peg,” he whispered. “I don’t know – I don’t know why I’m doing it.” He shook his head, twisting his hands around to grip onto hers, looking for some tether as he struggled to understand what was happening in his own head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It helped, over there,” he said regretfully. “It helped to have this – perfect life to look forward to. It was the only thing I thought about – coming home, where everything would be fine, like it had always been, and I would be the same person I was before. But – but I’m not. I can’t be. And Peg, that – that scares the hell out of me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peg surged forward, wrapping her arms around BJ’s shoulders and pulling his head to the crook of her neck as he broke down in sobs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re home now, you’re safe. It’s over, you made it. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Once Peg had said it, BJ saw it everywhere: how he followed her around the house, trying to help but getting in her way; the way he expected her to understand what he was thinking, even though he never shared it with her. She was right – it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t what either of them had wanted. He was locked into some kind of pantomime of marriage, performing for someone. Himself? An invisible audience? It wasn’t for her, that was clear. The realization scared BJ – that he could have been doing this all along, without even knowing it. What scared him more, though, was the fear that he might not be able to stop.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The phone trilled; BJ took his time answering it. He wandered through the front room filled with warm afternoon light on his way to the kitchen. It must be one of Peg’s clients, or maybe her friend Val, BJ told himself. It was almost always Val. No one ever called for him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was almost surprised that whoever-it-was had held on so long; there must have been eleven rings. When he picked up the phone, the voice on the other end pierced through BJ – sharp and fine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej? I wasn’t sure you’d be home – lucky me!” Hawkeye laughed from three thousand miles away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk! God, it’s good to hear your voice,” BJ breathed, feeling more invigorated than he had in weeks. Months, maybe. “I’m almost always home, still looking for the right gig,” he explained. Hawkeye hummed with a hint of suspicion.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know what Sidney says – the sooner you get back, the better it is.” There was an unfamiliar cautiousness in Hawkeye’s voice, making BJ wonder if he’d been worried about him. “You’re a great surgeon, Beej. You should be back in the OR.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Part of BJ wanted to be annoyed that Hawkeye immediately saw through any pretexts he’d concocted. But that’s what he loved about Hawkeye, the way he cut through the bullshit and got right to the heart of him – and tried to make him see it, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with Erin,” BJ explained after a beat. “Surgery will keep. She changes every day, Hawk, I – I have to be here to see it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know, Beej,” Hawkeye said, his voice full of a softness that made something in BJ’s chest squeeze.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s napping right now,” BJ said hastily, trying to distract himself from the feeling that had been building for so long, unnoticed until it suddenly became familiar. “Peg’s at work. So it’s just you and me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How’s our real estate mogul doing, anyway? How’s the beach house?” Hawkeye asked, inserting himself so easily into BJ’s life. Like he’d never left it. BJ laughed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s good! Busy. The house is coming along, should be done in three months or so. Peg asked me to take the lead on picking things out and it’s – well, it’s terrifying,” he confessed. “I don’t know anything about countertops or colors or – any of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sure you’re doing fine,” Hawkeye said, half reassuring and half teasing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just thought she’d want it to feel like her place, you know? Ours. But somehow it feels like it’s turning into – just mine.” It was a thought that had been percolating for months, but BJ had never been able to voice it before. It took saying it out loud, to Hawkeye, to realize that’s what it was. That Peg was giving him something. Something of his own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you two doing okay?” Hawkeye asked, and BJ tamped down the instinct to brush it all off – the instinct to lie.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” he finally said, openly. “I think we’re both – different. Two years is a long time, especially when it’s two years like those. With us there, losing our minds, and her here. Learning how to live alone. She’s still – she’s still the only woman I –“ BJ trailed off, suddenly aware he’d dropped all his defenses, that he was saying something very real out loud, for the first time. “I don’t know,” he finished helplessly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could tell Hawkeye didn’t know what to say, or how to reassure him. After an awkward moment, BJ asked about Daniel, about Crabapple Cove – and Hawkeye happily chatted away about his new patients, the trials of living with his dad again, all of it. As BJ listened, he felt that warmth spreading through his chest again – filling him up. It was something he associated with Erin these days – the same feeling he got watching her fall asleep in his arms, or gently tease Waggles, or listen intently while he told her a bedtime story. It felt like – like love. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>On a Wednesday morning, BJ met Peg at the Stinson site. It was almost done; the structure was there, the walls were up -- now they just needed to be filled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They walked around the empty house, Peg’s shoes clacking on the exposed subfloor. In the shell of the master bedroom, she paused in front of the picture window, facing the water. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, I’ve been thinking,” she said, not looking at him. “There’s something I need to tell you, but -- I’m scared to.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ hovered a few feet behind Peg, feeling a strange sense of calm -- or maybe dread. He was all mixed up these days; he couldn’t tell what emotions were running around inside him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can tell me anything, you know that,” BJ said, meaning it. Peg had always been honest -- he’d always loved that about her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It could change everything,” Peg warned him, reluctantly turning to face BJ. He looked around them at the bare room, the distance between them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s already changed,” he said. It felt good to finally acknowledge it. Peg had been trying to tell him that, and he’d been fighting it every step of the way. Trying to keep things the same. He was getting tired of fighting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peg took a deep breath, bracing herself for whatever she had to say. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you should move in here,” she said, anxiously gauging his reaction. BJ considered it for a moment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just me?” he clarified, and Peg nodded. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, I’ve been thinking a lot about why it worked -- before. And why it doesn’t work now,” Peg said. “I think that I never really wanted what everyone else had. I wanted a family -- I still do -- but not the same way, not the same -- not the same pieces.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It made a strange sort of sense to BJ. Peg had followed the path, but always in her own way. She was the one driving. BJ had been along for the ride. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think what I really want -- and BJ, part of me thinks you might understand this -- I want to be with someone who’s -- like me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ cocked his head, struggling to wrap his mind around that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Someone like you?” he asked. Peg hesitated before squaring her shoulders, standing up straighter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Val,” she told him. “I’m in love with Val.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Suddenly, it all slotted into place. BJ understood -- deep down, underneath the layers of sediment he’d built up over years, he knew exactly what she meant. He smiled at Peg, as tenderly as he could. He loved her -- he always would. She was his best friend. That’s what she’d always been, even before she was his girlfriend, or his wife. His best friend. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you sure you don’t want the beach house?” he asked, gesturing towards the view. Peg smiled widely and shook her head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s a place for a fresh start, BJ,” she said, reaching out for his hand. “I want you to have it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a long moment, they stood side by side in the unfinished house, looking out at the water, hands linking them together. BJ felt something opening inside of him. Something endless -- full of possibility. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>BJ stopped to catch his breath, bracing his hands on his thighs and looking out at the water. It was beautiful this time of day, he thought; but then, it was beautiful any time of day. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it. He straightened up and kept running, the sand shifting under his feet, making it twice as hard as it needed to be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was getting used to life at Stinson Beach. Getting used to waking up alone, the room bright with sunlight from its east-facing windows, the edges of morning just starting to illuminate the water. Getting used to driving through the redwoods, back to Mill Valley to see Erin. He felt almost as old as the trees, and nearly as tall, as he explored his new life. He was stretching out, testing his own boundaries, trying to find out where he ended and the emptiness began.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ felt the rhythm of the waves, keeping his footsteps in time with them. On his days without Erin, the beauty of it was all that kept him from falling apart. Tonight, as he ran along the beach, the moon was rising to his right, the sun setting to his left. Soon it would be dark – this was the lovely, lonely in-between time, when the sky couldn’t let the sun go and couldn’t quite welcome in the moon. Even though it was coming. Even though it was inevitable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As BJ got closer to the house, the people on the sand looked more familiar. The elderly couple a few doors down who looked at him suspiciously as he passed, wary of a man who spent so much time alone. The kids from next door, wringing the last drops of light out of the day; they shrieked with joy as they chased each other in circles, not paying him any attention at all. Their mother, who held up one hand to shield her eyes from the sun, the other to wave at him. BJ acknowledged her with a nod and kept running.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Back at the house, he started the shower, waiting to get in until the water was so hot it turned his hand pink. He stepped into the spray, rolling his shoulders and sighing. A scalding shower was his favorite luxury these days. He never wanted to take a cold shower again, it reminded him too much of Korea. Of standing in the stall next to Hawkeye, singing and joking together as they suffered through the indignity of cold water. He’d never really been alone, over there; now, he couldn’t understand why that hadn’t driven him crazy. Showering, sleeping, operating, eating – all shoulder to shoulder with Hawkeye. Something in him ached. He turned the water up hotter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ was bright pink all over by the time the water ran cold, and he stepped out onto the mat. He was getting used to being on his own; he liked it, he thought. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. And what he wanted was – well, it was to run on the beach. To take scalding hot showers. To think about what it was like, having Hawkeye beside him for those two years. To not think about what it meant. To focus so much of his energy on not thinking about it, that it ended up being the only thing in his head.  </span>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, can you give me a hand?” Peg called out at the front door. BJ hopped up and went over, lifting Erin out of her arms and using a foot to prop the door open. Peg went back to the car, pulling a brown grocery bag out of the backseat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks for cooking tonight,” BJ said, bouncing Erin on his hip, sparking a fit of giggles. “Is Val coming?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peg shook her head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She thinks it’s good for us to have some time, just the three of us,” she explained with a shy smile. BJ shook his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s always welcome, Peg,” he said plainly. “She’s family now, right?” Peg smiled at him warmly, and BJ thought – there she is. The same old Peg, just a little bit older, and a little bit more cautious. She’d learned how to scramble eggs, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That night they sat around the table, just the three of them, but it felt – incomplete. Peg had an empty chair at her side, where Val would sit next week, if she could be convinced she wasn’t intruding. And on BJ’s right – no chair, but undeniably an empty space. It demanded to be filled, and that demand traced a tenuous line through his chest, tugging at things that were still buried there -- just below the surface, steadily rising. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It felt strange to play at being a happy family, after everything. Peg stayed after dinner and put Erin to bed in the room BJ had painted seafoam green. Later, they stood side by side at the sink, BJ washing dishes and handing them to Peg to dry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Have you talked to him about it?” she asked eventually, breaking the silence. BJ’s hands faltered for a moment, dropping the sponge into the soapy water. After a moment, he felt around for it and went back to work.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How did you know?” he asked, instead of answering. “That Val was – interested?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peg pursed her lips thoughtfully, setting down the plate she’d been wiping down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t,” she said. “Just, at a certain point, I knew I had to do something about it. For my own sake. So I wouldn’t go crazy wondering.” She looked at BJ pointedly; he just sighed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, don’t you think you owe yourself at least a chance to be happy, after everything you’ve been through?” she asked softly. “I don’t know Hawkeye, but I feel like I do. And even if all my instincts are wrong and he doesn’t feel the same way -- even then, I think he’s the kind of person who would understand. I don’t think he would freeze you out, or hate you, or –“ Peg paused. “I just think you should tell him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell him what?” BJ finally replied, in a tone that put the conversation to bed. Peg rolled her eyes, seeming disappointed but not surprised. She put away the last dish, and BJ pulled the stopper out of the sink. The water swirled down the drain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Peg, I’m not – I’ve never been – as brave as you,” he said awkwardly, bracing himself on the counter, staring at their reflections in the window over the sink. Peg brought a hand to the center of his back, establishing a comfortable line of connection between them. It reminded BJ of being a kid, sick in bed; how his mother would rub gentle circles there as she told him it would pass, it would all be okay, he would feel better soon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not brave,” Peg said openly. “I’m scared as hell. We all are, BJ. Didn’t you know that?” BJ huffed out a laugh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I guess not,” he said. “You always seemed like you knew what you were doing. Even from the beginning.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t,” Peg confessed. “I was scared, the whole time. From the moment you walked up to me in the cafeteria, I wondered – am I doing this right? Is this how it’s supposed to feel?” She paused, and the silence felt guilty somehow. BJ leaned into the comforting touch at his back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s how I felt too,” he said in a low voice. “It was better than anything else, Peg – you were. You are. But I didn’t know how different it could feel with – with someone like Hawk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peg brought her hand up to BJ’s shoulder; she gently tugged him away from the sink to face her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There you go, BJ. There you go. See? It’s not so hard to say it. Didn’t I tell you?” She was smiling at him, seeming – proud, BJ thought. Proud of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were so kind to me, kinder than I had any right to expect,” Peg said, her voice breaking. “I just wish you would be that kind to yourself. BJ, you’re so used to keeping the world at a distance, don’t – don’t keep him away, too. Don’t shut us all out.”. BJ nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He brought a hand up to rest on Peg’s arm, catching her elbow, halfway between them. He pulled her in for a hug, comfortable in the way she still fit under his chin.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That night, BJ sat on the edge of his bed. The room was shadowy, lit only by the reflection of the moon on the water outside the window.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m in love,” BJ said, testing the words out loud. They left a strange taste in his mouth – not bad, just strange. “I’m in love with a man. I’m in love with Hawkeye.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That one didn’t feel as strange. It felt sort of – natural. Like something that had been caged up inside him all along, just waiting to be let out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He kept saying it out loud, when he was alone. Just getting used to the shape of the words, the way they sounded, the way they felt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was in love with Hawkeye.</span>
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>BJ woke up gasping for air, his skin clammy and hair plastered to his forehead. Another nightmare; they didn’t come every night, but they got worse every time. He needed to see him, touch him. And if he couldn’t – he needed to hear his voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He scrambled out of bed and stumbled toward the phone. He was in a daze as he waited to be connected. The operator sounded tired, too; she snapped at him a little, warned him that no one would answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just call,” he said through gritted teeth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It rang, and rang, and rang. He was about to give up when a rough voice answered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?” Hawkeye said. He was more asleep than awake, BJ could tell just by his voice. God, it was good to hear that voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawkeye,” BJ said, feeling like he was strangling somehow, even with nothing around his neck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej? What’s wrong? Are you okay? Is Erin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine, everything’s fine,” BJ reassured him quickly, before he realized – everything wasn’t fine. Not really. “Well –“ BJ added, “I had this – this dream, and I needed to talk to you. Hear your voice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hawkeye was silent for a moment, and BJ was suddenly self-conscious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“God, Hawk, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about the time difference –” BJ felt manic, desperate to apologize, until Hawkeye interrupted him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej,” he said gently. “You can always call. Always. Doesn’t matter what time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ exhaled, overwhelmed with gratitude, and affection, and – and love. Now that he could name the feeling, he felt it in his chest all the time, threatening to overflow and spill out. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It feels so silly,” he told Hawkeye. “I know it’s not real.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Through the phone, he could almost feel Hawkeye understanding, almost see the open look on his face that meant he was there, he was listening, he wasn’t going to back away from you, no matter how badly you scared yourself. He was going to be there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me about it,” Hawkeye whispered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ slid forward in the chair then leaned back, his head resting on the top rail. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear, half-curling up to tell Hawkeye the story.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re in the Swamp,” he started. “And you’re having a nightmare.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sounds familiar,” Hawkeye said, prompting him to continue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I run over to wake you up, and I shake you by the shoulders, and I shout your name, but you don’t wake up,” BJ explained. “You just go on shouting, crying for help. And there’s nothing I can do for you – you just keep yelling. And I know you need help, but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t get you out of there. I just have to watch you suffering and know – I can’t help.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The line was silent for a moment, then Hawkeye let out a soft </span>
  <em>
    <span>hmm</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, what do you think?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you worry too much about other people,” Hawkeye said plainly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk – are you – what?” BJ didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej, you just – you should forget about it. Forget about me. I’m dragging you down. That’s what it means.” Hawkeye sounded tired, even for 4 a.m. More tired than he had sounded a few minutes ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s bullshit,” BJ said, suddenly angry. “You’re not dragging me down, you’re – you’re my lifeline, Hawkeye. You kept me alive before and you’re still doing it, even from all the way across the country. So don’t you dare say I need to forget you, not when you’re the best – the best person I’ve ever known.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej,” Hawkeye said quietly, sadly. “I – I’m not all that. I’m really not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re an idiot,” BJ said, irritated. “You’re a complete idiot if you think that. You are the best, Hawk – the most open and – the most honest – and I’m sitting here, tied up in knots because I can’t have – I can’t have you anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ paused, but Hawkeye didn’t speak, and he didn’t hang up. So BJ kept going.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I used to think –“ he struggled for a moment to find the words. “I used to think I had it all figured out. How to stay sane, keep it together. I was so – so good at it. I think I’d been doing it my whole life, and I didn’t even know it. Just – keeping things from touching me. Keeping them outside of myself, not – not letting them inside. You got inside, Hawk. I don’t know how, but you did, and – and you’re never leaving. I don’t want you to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej,” Hawkeye said, a warning in his voice somehow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry I woke you. I didn’t mean to ruin your night, or – or bring up all this stuff you don’t want to think about anymore.” BJ was feeling so many things – rejected, desolate, empty. If he didn’t have Hawkeye – he wasn’t sure he had anything. Not anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You didn’t ruin anything,” Hawkeye said. “Just – it’s hard for me when you – when you say things like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ considered that silently for a moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?” he finally asked. He heard Hawkeye sigh through the line.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I might start to think you mean it,” Hawkeye said, a strangled kind of sarcasm in his voice – like he wanted to say it like a joke, but his tongue wouldn’t let him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I do mean it,” BJ promised, the words finally spilling out. “I mean it. Hawk – Hawkeye – I mean it. More than I’ve ever meant anything before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ –”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk, I – I love you. I love you so much, it – it’s the only thing inside me anymore. It fills me up, it – it keeps me going. I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ heard Hawkeye’s sharp inhale, almost like a sob – he held his breath and waited. Finally, Hawkeye spoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t believe you would say that to me over the phone – in the middle of the night – Beej, you rat.” There was something delicate in Hawkeye’s voice. It gave BJ hope.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk, can we talk – really talk – soon? At a decent hour, when I haven’t dragged you out of bed?” BJ asked hesitantly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Isn’t this talking?” Hawkeye replied, joking but affectionate. BJ clung on to that tone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I call you tomorrow?” he pushed, wanting a real answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure, Beej. Call me tomorrow.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p>   </p>
<p>
  <span>Waking up, BJ felt an incredible lightness, a sense of relief, before the weight of what he’d done set in. Hawkeye hadn’t really – he hadn’t really said much. Maybe BJ had been so keyed up that he hadn’t let him, had just poured out his heart and promised to call tomorrow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now it was tomorrow. Now BJ couldn’t stop wondering if he’d ruined it all. But still, with all that anxiety balled up inside him, he knew that Peg was right. Even if Hawkeye didn’t feel the same -- not saying it, not finding out, that would be worse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He puttered around the house, making toast and coffee for himself, sorting his laundry – anything to keep himself busy for a few hours. He’d woken Hawkeye in the middle of the night, after all; he wanted him to have some sleep before deciding – anything. Anything that could be final, permanent. Lasting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, around 10 o’clock, he braced himself to call. It only took a few minutes to get up the courage. He held his breath as the phone rang – and rang – and rang. No answer. BJ hung up, half-dejected but not willing to descend into despair so soon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe he was working, or at his dad’s, or – it could be anything. BJ couldn’t let himself acknowledge that Hawkeye might be ignoring him. He just couldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tried a few more times; he was getting very well-acquainted with the sound of Hawkeye’s phone ringing. Soon the house was tidier than it had ever been, and BJ had flipped through the entire paper without absorbing a single word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>About 10 hours after the first call, BJ was vibrating out of his skin. He just needed to know – he needed the waiting to end. If Hawkeye was done with him – he could deal with that. He just needed to know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked up Daniel’s number, still tucked in his address book from when Hawkeye had stayed there, right after returning to Maine. Daniel picked up on the third ring.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?” said a scratchy, comforting northeastern voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mr. Pierce? This is BJ Hunnicutt,” BJ said, falling back on the manners that had been drilled into him over a lifetime.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BJ, of course!” Daniel said. He sounded happy to hear from BJ – he clung on to that as a sign that things would be alright.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to get ahold of Hawkeye – we were supposed to talk today, he knew I was calling, but – he’s not picking up now,” BJ said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh – BJ, something came up unexpectedly, he had to – he had to leave town,” Daniel said, something cagy in his voice. He sounded like Hawkeye with a scheme. Any other time, BJ would have been thrilled to recognize the similarities in their voices. Now, though, it just made the pit in his stomach grow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you know when he’ll be back?” BJ asked, feeling dread creep over him. Fear, that he was being ignored, or forgotten.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry son, I’m not sure,” Daniel said. “What time is it there, anyway?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ looked at his watch and told him. Daniel hummed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Say hello for me,” Daniel said cryptically as he signed off. BJ spluttered, looking for some kind of explanation, but the line was already dead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stood at the kitchen counter, phone in his hand, dial tone echoing, suddenly feeling – empty. Not the despair he had expected, not anger. Just – nothing. It was familiar, the way he could feel himself closing up, knitting himself together tighter than before. Tamping this down, too, compacting it to fit next to the blood and guts, the missing years. He felt like he was observing himself, finally aware enough to watch his defenses in action. Knowing that each time he numbed himself, it would be harder to feel something the next time. If there was a next time. If he let anyone else in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The doorbell rang. He went to answer it in a daze.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There – on the porch, on a cool Bay Area evening – was Hawkeye Pierce, suitcase in hand, deep wrinkles pressed into his clothes, a wild look in his eyes. Everything that had been suppressed inside BJ just – snapped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk –” BJ gasped. Hawkeye dropped his suitcase on the cement and threw his arms around BJ.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I had to – I had to come. After you said that – on the phone –“ Hawkeye’s words were jumbled, his face half-buried in BJ’s shoulder, his tone manic. “I had to see you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ breathed in deeply, feeling Hawkeye in his arms, solid and real. Here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought –” BJ fought through the lump forming in his throat. “When you didn’t pick up the phone, I thought –” Hawkeye cut him off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I do – I do. BJ, so much,” he said, his voice somehow tender and fierce at the same time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ pulled back, his arms braced on Hawkeye’s shoulders, not willing to let him go but needing to see his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you came all this way –” he said, the words catching in his throat. Hawkeye beamed and stooped to pick up his suitcase.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I come in?” he asked, gesturing toward the open door behind BJ. They were still standing on the porch, in the warm light that spilled out into the night. BJ’s hand skated down to Hawkeye’s elbow and he pulled him inside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hawkeye dropped the bag again as the door closed behind him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” BJ said, tugging him toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I have coffee, or something stronger –” Hawkeye cut BJ off as he rambled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” he said. “Can we sit down? Talk about it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ nodded, suddenly nervous about what Hawkeye would say. Part of him knew he was being silly – Hawkeye had come all this way, just to talk. So they had to talk. BJ just hoped he liked what Hawkeye had to say.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They sat catty-corner at the kitchen table. Hawkeye looked around the room appraisingly, while BJ’s hands fidgeted nervously on the tabletop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Looks like you did fine with the countertops and paint colors,” Hawkeye commented. BJ rolled his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can we skip this part, Hawk?” he asked, his tone close to biting, but tempered with affection.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure, let’s get right to it,” Hawkeye said too easily. “What do you want to talk about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ groaned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” he pleaded. “You came all this way to talk to me in person, so – say something. Something real,” BJ challenged him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, alright then,” Hawkeye said, like he was gearing up for some kind of battle. “Here’s what I came to say. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for telling me you love me at 3 in the morning, over the phone, and not giving me a chance to say it back. But I think that if you spend the rest of your life trying to make it up to me – I mean really, really trying – you might convince me to change my mind.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t anything so brazen, so – so Hawkeye. He should have known.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” BJ said, as if the matter was settled. In his mind, it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay?” Hawkeye asked, disbelieving.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying,” BJ clarified.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You – come here,” Hawkeye said, grabbing BJ by the collar and pulling him across the corner of the table, bringing him in for a desperate kiss – it was all pressure, no finesse, but neither of them seemed to mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can keep working on that, too,” Hawkeye said breathlessly as they parted, one hand cradling the back of BJ’s head. His touch was full of tenderness – the kind BJ had witnessed every once in a while – the kind he never expected to receive himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” BJ promised, smiling.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They orbited each other the rest of the night, casually crashing every so often, drawn together by unseen forces that - finally - BJ understood. He’d been circling Hawkeye for so long, reaching out without knowing why. Now he could see it for what it had been all along. And he could see Hawkeye, reaching back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hawkeye looked so at home here, BJ thought. He had stepped into the house and it had reshaped itself around him. BJ knew that from now on, if Hawkeye left, there would be an emptiness there. BJ felt the same way about his chest, although really -- Hawkeye had been in there all along, hadn’t he? Tucked away, in the deep places BJ hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. Now everything was lit up. It was something he’d been fighting against for years, illuminating the dark corners -- but somehow, now that the lights were on, the good things seemed even brighter too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They eventually landed on the sofa, sitting a few inches apart, with casual points of contact anchoring them together -- BJ’s arm over the back of the couch, draping onto Hawkeye’s shoulder; Hawkeye’s leg crossed, his shin brushing against BJ’s knee. They said mostly meaningless things, speaking between the words; everything had a new significance, one they didn’t need to say out loud. Eventually, Hawkeye started yawning. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re still on east coast time,” BJ realized. Hawkeye tried to wave him away just as another yawn struck. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on, Hawk,” BJ said, standing and holding out a hand. Hawkeye eyed it warily for a moment, then took it. BJ pulled him to his feet. He led Hawkeye down the hallway, not realizing he had a choice to make until they were standing in between two doorways. Erin’s seafoam room, or BJ’s room with a view.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk --” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want to stay with you,” Hawkeye said sleepily, anticipating the question. BJ took a deep breath and opened the bedroom door. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>BJ steered Hawkeye to the bed, where he sat down heavily. BJ kneeled, unlacing Hawkeye’s boots, slipping them off in the dark. Hawkeye didn’t protest or encourage BJ as he unbuttoned his overshirt, sliding it off his shoulders and guiding Hawkeye to lie down. BJ went to his dresser for pajamas; by the time he turned back, Hawkeye was already dozing off. BJ laid next to him, close but not touching, just feeling the warmth radiate off Hawkeye. He reached out with a pinkie, barely brushing his hand against Hawkeye’s. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Beej?” Hawkeye murmured. BJ hummed in response, prompting him to go on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m glad you called,” Hawkeye whispered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me too,” BJ replied softly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wasn’t sure you ever would,” Hawkeye continued as he drifted closer to sleep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hawk, did you know the whole time?” BJ asked, not sure Hawkeye was alert enough to reply, but needing to ask. Needing the answer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I knew there was -- something,” Hawkeye said, his voice fading to practically a sigh. “Knew you were hiding something. Wasn’t sure what. Hoped it was this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ couldn’t help but smile as Hawkeye fell fully into sleep. </span>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p><hr/>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ woke up slowly, blinking in the warm morning light. He looked over to his left – Hawkeye wasn’t in bed, but he was just beyond it, wearing BJ’s robe and looking out the picture window that faced the ocean.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Morning,” BJ said, his voice rusty. Hawkeye looked over his shoulder and smiled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Morning,” he said softly, turning back to the window. “It’s beautiful here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ admired his own view for a moment, Hawkeye silhouetted against the white curtains and the shades of blue beyond.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>BJ felt lighter than ever before – like none of the bad things mattered anymore, and there was only goodness left. Like his whole life was ahead of him, and he couldn’t wait to live it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want to know the best part?” he asked, and Hawkeye hummed questioningly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You never get used to it,” BJ promised. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You caught me... the title is a reference to the musical Waitress... I had about 4 different working titles and somehow this one stuck.</p><p>I cannot thank <a href="https://herrlichersonnigertag.tumblr.com/">herrlichersonnigertag</a> enough for beta reading and cheering me on through this whole process!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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